Fall of Man
by Vlad the Impala
Summary: After an innocent question about the Armor of the Fallen, the Gems decide to explain the origins of one armor set in particular. A blood red armor, belonging to Prince Vlad Dracul III. (Rated M for future violence/language)
1. Chapter 1: Reminiscence

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, if I did I'd be rich.

 **A/N: After a long, LONG hiatus from writing anything, I've decided to take a swing at a rather odd one. It is not entirely historically accurate considering the crossover, but I hope you'll enjoy it. Please read and review, that way I can improve my writing.**

Roses armory, a beautiful place that held some of Rose's most powerful weapons and most treasured . Sometimes Pearl could be found there, and although she couldn't activate any of the mechanisms that would allow her to view the treasures Rose collected, she enjoyed the memories that it brought for her. She danced in the middle where the pedestal would rise should Steven come in, listening to the light sound of water and moving to a song only she could hear. They were graceful steps, flourishes with a partner no one could see, and it wasn't until the pedestal activated did she sputter and stop.

"Pearl!" came the excited cry of a young half-gem half-human hybrid, and it wasn't long after that a large pink lion with Steven and Connie riding on its back appeared. Pearl couldn't help the small smile that hit her lips, watching the two children with such excited looks on their faces.

"Steven, how did you ever find me?" she asked, although one look at Lion was all she needed to know as he let them both off of his back, which was only confirmed when Steven ran up with stars burning in his eyes

"Pearl! We have something we wanted to talk to you about!" he said excitedly, moving away from her to go to the pedestal, following him with her eyes as Connie stood next to her, her sword in place at her hip on a belt

"We were wondering about those armor pieces, everything else looks like ancient gem tech, but those armors looked human." Connie said, looking up to her master as Steven began poking himself in an attempt to bring up the aforementioned armor pieces "We were talking about it and wondering why Rose had them."

Pearl couldn't help the excitement that had taken over her, they wanted to learn about the past exploits of the Crystal Gems! "Ooooh Connie, Steven!" she said, clasping her hands together as she went over to Steven, watching as the Heretics Anguish and the Axes of Ages appeared and disappeared. It was when the Armor finally appeared that Steven stopped with a holler of triumph.

"Mom had all of this stuff, but we don't really know what any of it is." Steven said, going around to the armor with a helmet best described as a bucket "This armor is way too small for mom to have worn, and it's too bulky even for you." Steven said, looking up at her "So who did it belong to?"

Pearl smiled gently before nodding, looking at the helmet with a bit of nostalgia. "These belonged to humans that fought alongside us, and in some cases assisted us against corrupted gems, and in one case even against a gem that hadn't been corrupted, but was still attempting to reactivate the Kindergarten as a sort of last hurrah I suppose." she said with a chuckle, looking as Steven and Connie moved to look at the armor, following them with a smile.

"So I might end up here." Connie said softly, earning a somewhat distraught look from Steven, and even Pearl couldn't help but feel an internal flinch from what Connie said. "I would certainly hope not Connie." she said softly as she rested her hand on an armor that had belong to a young woman that had fought alongside them, only to be killed by a misguided Church in the throes of heavy corruption "Most of these humans met horrible fates. They were betrayed, killed by their countrymen, and-" she paused, looking to the armor to the right before sighing "becoming corrupted themselves."

Steven and Connie both moved to it, looking up at the imposing armor. It had a red, torn cape with heavily layered red armor. A single belt was across his waist, keeping the leg armor on whilst two more belts held an impressively large bastard sword. Hanging around the armors neck was a thin string holding a golden cross. Inlayed in the gauntlet was a dragon, with it's tail wrapped around its neck. On it's back was the cross of Saint George, whose armor was also on display in the armory.

"What happened to him?" Connie asked as Steven went under the cape, looking at the rest of the armor with interest, and some awe. The armor was made for someone who was very tall, maybe as tall as Garnet. "You said some became corrupted when you looked at this armor."

"Yeah, what happened to this guy?" Steven asked, recognizing the cross from the Church that the Fryman family went to, although it was very different and far more ornate. "I thought only gems could get corrupted?" Steven asked as he turned to Pearl expectantly.

She looked at them and then back at the armor, sighing as she placed her hand on it's chest. "Prince Vlad Dracul the Third, Voivode of Wallachia." she said softly, earning a soft gasp from Connie "He never fought alongside the gems, he even actively stood against us when our mission took us into his country, but he…" she sighed and pulled her hand away before looking at Connie and Steven "He was something your mother regarded with deep regret."

"Why?" Steven asked, looking up at her with those starry eyes again, joined this time by Connie who looked even more excited. "What happened to him? What do you mean when you said he was corrupted!" Connie chimed in, looking as if she was going to be treated to an especially good story rather than a piece of history.

Pearl let out a sigh, looking down at the two before chuckling softly. She just couldn't resist Steven's starry eyes, not when they looked so much like _hers._ "It's probably best if we do this with Amethyst and Garnet as well." she said softly as she made her way to Lion, waiting for the children to hop on before getting on herself, since Lion would only ever let her near him if Steven was there. With how the two constantly asked questions even on the very short ride home, she could tell it was going to be a very busy day.


	2. Chapter 2: Agreement

They arrived just outside of the temple, Lion skidding to a stop before plopping onto the sand to let them off so he could go rest underneath the deck. Lion may be a big cat, but he was just as lazy as the real thing. Of course, Steven bolted up the stairs to get the living area ready, with Connie just behind him. Pearl couldn't stop the smile that was on her lips, even if the story he was so excited to hear wasn't exactly a happy one. She made her way up to find Garnet and Amethyst already waiting, thankful that Garnet had likely seen them coming with her future vision.

For as little time as Steven had, he'd made sure to make the living area as prepared for story time as possible. Pillows for Connie and him, some larger ones for the gems, with ambiance lighting and some snacks which Amethyst was already eyeballing. As she took her place among them Steven and Connie both looked up at her with big smiles, returning it with one of her own before she even knew it.

"So Pearl," Garnet started, her smooth voice making her come from her observations "Steven was telling us you told them about the Armor of the Fallen, _his_ in particular." she said softly "Do you really think it's a good idea? It's quite the story, not really one for children."

Pearl only considered it for a moment before she was interrupted by the shortest, and most rambunctious of their group, Amethyst "The Ste-man can handle it, we've been hiding things from him for a while now and it never works out. This is about a dead guy, so it's not like it can come back and bite us." she said, laughing at her own, unintentional joke.

Pearl let out an exasperated sigh before she spoke, earning a somewhat shocked looked from Amethyst at her words. "I agree with Amethyst, we've hid so many things from Steven, and sometimes it's almost caused him to be injured, and other times it's kept him from really helping us to his best potential." she said softly "And...as much as I hate to admit it, this is something that happened that he needs to know." she said, wringing her hands nervously

Garnet looked at the two other gems, considering her options before nodding. "Steven, there are a great many things on Earth, and in the universe at large that you are unaware of." she started, looking at the two young humans from behind her shades "And until we met that man, we were sure that we had a pretty good understanding of what humanity was capable of."

Amethyst laughed as she worked on making an abomination of a snack, made up of various things that Steven had put out "Man, here we were thinking 'oh well there's no way humans can stand up to us! We're the strongest!'" she said in a dopey voice, drawing a small frown from Pearl.

"To the majority, yes we are superior." she said, somewhat insulted that they were being compared to something as squishy as humans, although she pushed that sentiment away. Old beliefs were hard to get rid of, especially for someone like a Gem. "Vlad was, well he was different from other humans." she said softly "He fought hard for his country, he was greedy, selfish, and he had self destructive tendencies. You know, most of the things that humans are known for." she said, a hologram coming up and showing them what he looked like. Long, flowing black hair with a goatee, his dark eyes filled with a fire that was both inspiring and terrifying.

"When we first encountered that man, he stood up to us with no fear in his eyes or his heart. He stood below Rose, but he spoke to her as an equal." Garnet started, noticing the frown and a slight puffing of cheeks from Pearl "We'd seen humans act like that before, but it was usually posturing. It was the first time in nearly a thousand years, that someone actually-" she paused for a moment, thinking of a term Steven would understand "walked the walk." she finally said, pausing to looking down at the two.

Connie raised her hand like she was in a classroom, hugging her pillow to her chest. Pearl let out a soft chuckle and motioned to her as if giving her permission to speak. "Why did you even need to meet with him? From what I'm hearing it sounds like he was standing in the way of your mission! Couldn't you have just kicked his butt?" she asked, earning an agreeing nod from Steven, although in his mind he would have preferred a more peaceful approach.

"How did you guys meet?" Steven asked, now in the same position as Connie as he looked at the three gems. "You said he didn't fight alongside mom, and that he actually fought you guys! Not to mention that he was one of mom's mistakes! So how did you guys meet him?" he asked, bouncing up and down and drawing a small chuckle from Pearl.

"I suppose we should start from the beginning then." she said softly, her hologram shifting to the inside of the temple, nearly half a millenia ago...


	3. Chapter 3: 1459

**The Temple Circa 1459~**

The temple looked different, even only half a century ago. The large statue had far less cracks in it, the arm that held the sword was still in place, and the little beach house they'd all built for Steven was not even in place. Instead it was simply the hands around the temple entrance with the entrance facing the open beach. It was beautiful to see it it such a complete state, even without the gems outside of it.

The silence was broken with the sound of the Warp pad activating, revealing the quadrio as they stepped down from the pad. Rose Quartz, a large pink woman with a gem over where her belly button would be had she been human. She was a large woman, easily towering over the majority of humans. Her body was thick, her form tapering ever so slightly at the waist to give her deep curves, and while it gave her a motherly aura it belied the extreme power she held in her body. She looked exactly the same as they all remembered her.

Flanked on one side was Pearl, a tiny thing that looked far more child-like that Steven had ever known her. She was wearing something he'd only dreamed of though. She wore a small knight armor, fitted to her lithe form with a sword at her hip (Steven couldn't help but to comment on how cool she looked). She had a happy look on her face, glad that another mission had gone without a hitch.

On Rose's other side was Garnet, looking similar to how she did now, although her afro was just a bit smaller, and her skin tight outfit was split down the middle evenly in black and red (Connie couldn't help but to comment on how much Garnet looked like a jester of the olden days, drawing boisterous laugh from Amethyst).

And perched on Rose's shoulder was none other than Amethyst, much smaller and compact than Steven knew her. Her hair was much shorter, and even styled similarly to Pearl's. She hopped down and turned, her voice loud as she laughed.

"That wasn't so hard! Why do you guys always gotta make it sound like it'll be our last mission?" she said, bounding down to the beach to put her feet in the water.

"Because Amethyst, it's dangerous out there! There's still corrupted gems and still don't know if we have all of the homeworld gems bubbled." Pearl said, her armor disappearing and revealing a more casual uniform, a very simple dress somewhat similar to a squire's clothing although it still held a knightly air to it with its pink and white hues "But you are right, that mission went quite well." she said with a small smile as she looked up to their leader.

She let out a small chuckle that sent a light tingle up Pearl's spine "You all did very well." she said with a bright smile "We captured another corrupted gem, and saved the humans that it was terrorizing." she said softly, noting with some sadness that the gems, other than Amethyst, seemed to only care about capturing the gem rather than how it helped the locals. "Well, I think we should take a break in any case. We've been hunting for gems since morning, it's already about to be night time. I'd hate to miss watching the stars in the sky." she said somewhat dreamily

Garnet had stayed silent the entire time, although that wasn't entirely too surprising. She preferred to have use her words when they were needed. So her next words, while needed, surprised even her. "There's someone coming." she said before turning to the warp pad, her gauntlets out.

They all immediately flew into action when they saw her gauntlets come out. Rose's sword and shield appeared with a flash of light from her gem, Pearl's armor appeared again and she grabbed her favored sword. Amethyst pulled her whip from her gem and they all waited for the pad to activate.

When the warp pad activated they all tensed even further if that were possible, two figures stood within the signature pillar of light, and when it disappeared they were surprised at the occupants. Two pearls, each with their spears drawn also had looks of surprise on their faces. Their uniforms were much like Pearl's own armor, although they were a dark color, their capes a deep crimson. What was strange was the symbol that was emblazoned on their chests. Instead of the diamond shape of homeworld, or the star shape that Rose's forces had adopted, there was a dragon, its throat gripped by its own tail.

"Woah woah woah," Connie interrupted, looking up at the hologram with confusion "There's more than one Pearl?" She asked, looking over to her teacher, who had flushed to a light shade of blue.

"Well...yes." She said, some nervousness in her voice as she spoke "Th-That's for a different time though." She said softly, silently hoping they would drop the subject.

Luckily for her, Steven noticed her discomfort and came up with a different topic for her to talk about. "Hey!" He stood up and pointed at the chest of the slightly taller Pearl "That's the thingy that was on the armors glove!" He said, taking another good look to confirm it in the slightly blue hued hologram.

"It's called a gauntlet Steven, and yes, they are bearing the Order of the Dragon emblem." Pearl said softly, looking up towards the hologram with a small frown on her face. "They were a sort of inquisitional force, attacking heretics and destroying the enemies of Christ." Pearl said with some disdain "They also actively hunted gem artifacts to lock away or destroy, oddly enough not out of obligation to their God, but because they viewed them as a threat to humanity as a whole." She chuckled "No point in trying to save a race that was killed by _superior_ technology I suppose." she said, angling her nose up and making it seem pointier, if that were at all possible.

"Ok Pearl, we don't need to hear _this_ speech again." Amethyst said, disinterest in her voice as she lounged on the couch "Besides, we nearly got killed by that tech not too long ago, remember?" she asked, drawing an embarrassed cough from Pearl as Garnet looked down at her.

"Continue Pearl, it's getting late. The children need their sleep and then we can pick this up tomorrow." she said, looking back up at the hologram "Besides, you haven't gotten to the good bits yet."

Pearl looked at Garnet before clearing her throat and nodding. "Right." she said before looking up again, opening her mouth to begin reciting the scene from her memory...


	4. Chapter 4: Information

It was a tense standoff, although in that time Pearl took the time to emblazon their details into her mind, as she'd always had in service to Rose Quartz. The taller of the two Pearls had a black pearl on her head, an armored head plate keeping her long black hair in place through a small hole in the back of the helmet.

The smaller one had a golden pearl in her forehead, her matching hair much shorter and styled similarly to Pearl's. She pointed her spear at them, slight panic in her eyes as different plans ran through her head. They seemed confused, scared even at the sight of the Crystal Gems that they thought had long died out, along with everyone else from the war.

She wondered why the two were so varied, the colors yes, but there shouldn't have been any height difference, they should have been the same. So why did the Black Pearl take on such a different appearance? Why was she taller and somewhat more dense than the shorter Golden Pearl and herself? Her thoughts were brought to a halt as the taller Pearl held her hands out, her spear dissipating in a shower of light, gesturing for the smaller Pearl to do the same.

The Crystal gems were caught off guard by the action, sure that a battle would have ensued from the Pearls. Most of them had allied with the Homeworld during the war, so to see two of them simply dissipate their weapons was definitely a surprise. "Tahi." Was the one word that left the Black Pearl's lips, motioning to her smaller compatriot before adding "She is Sou. We aren't here to fight."

They all held their weapons up, ready for anything until they heard the sound of their leader, Rose Quartz, sending away her own weapons. With that unsaid command, they all dismissed their own, except for Pearl who opted to instead leave hers by her side, untrusting of the other pearls that stood before them.

As happy as she was to hear those words, Rose had to be pragmatic. During the war Pearls would kill themselves rather than give any information to her faction, and aside from that, her own Pearl was the only one she knew of that had developed her own personality. That alone gave her some hope, what had happened that gave these two Pearls their own unique appearances, let alone their own names?

"What is it you are here for?" Rose asked simply, deciding the direct route was probably for the best. The others stood by, Pearl ready to fight if needed, but with Garnet also in a somewhat relaxed position, she felt the need to do so lessen with each passing second. Amethyst simply looked antsy, she wasn't around when during the war against the Homeworld, so she didn't really have any idea of what to expect. Pearl almost envied the much smaller gem for her ignorance of the subject.

"We were exploring the warp pads," Came the response from Sou, who tried her best to seem intimidating despite her small stature and how the armor seemed almost too big for her "to see if there were any corrupted gems or alternatively, unwanted creatures interfering with the left behind gem technology."

Tahi nodded, looking over to the Crystal Gems before continuing from where her compatriot started "We thought we were some of the few that hadn't been corrupted. The entirety of both forces were obliterated in that final battle. To be honest, I'm amazed we found anyone that wasn't corrupted, let alone you." she said, unable to stop the disdain that leaked into her voice before she regained her composure "We...are supposed to invite any uncorrupted gems to meet with our master."

"Master?" This question came from Pearl, a frown settling on her face as she stepped forward "Did one of the diamonds survive? They're the only ones you would ever refer to as your masters!" she demanded, earning a laugh from Sou, much to her confusion "They abandoned us, we wouldn't go back to them even if they begged, not now anyway." she said before the taller gem gently touched her shoulder.

"The truth is, we got lucky." Tahi replied with a shrug "We were still in our gem forms when the calamity happened. We were kept in storage in case our leaders lost a pearl. Luckily for us, the storage device was hardened against whatever weapon that was used to cause the corruption in the rest of the gems on Earth." she said before smiling "When we woke up, it was thanks to an accidental discovery. We've only been awake for about twelve hundred years, and it was thanks to an expedition ordered by a Roman Emperor at the time. We were given to him as gifts, the servants thought we were only large pearls, but when we awoke, we imprinted on him as our programming commanded."

"None of that matters!" Amethyst broke in, running up to the two and looking up at them, not noticing the panicked look on Pearl's face as the smaller gem seemed to forget about how the two other pearls could very easily beat the smaller less experienced gem, even if they themselves hadn't been awake that long "We have new team mates!" she said excitedly, happy to make new friends, although the others seemed far more apprehensive.

"Well," Tahi chuckled lightly at the overcooked gem's excitement "We were hoping you would join _our_ team. You see it's not easy doing what we do, even if we do have the support of a veritable army of humans." she said, although she couldn't stop the fear that entered her system at the look of pure anger that was burning in the much larger Rose Quartz's eyes.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked measuredly, knowing how the Homeworld had viewed and treated humanity during the war. She took several steps forward, looking down at them both with eyes that had no anger, just a desperate hope that she was wrong.

"N-No!" Sou said quickly, throwing her hands up "No, we work _with_ them!" she said, not noticing the surprised looks from Garnet and Pearl, although it was very hard to not notice the look of relief that had entered Roses eyes.

"It would be better if we showed you." Tahi interjected, looking at them and pulling Sou back to make more room for the Crystal Gems on the Warp Pad. "Our directive for the past several hundred years has been to protect humanity, helping those that would follow the orders given to us by Emperor Constantine after his death." she said softly "We served with various people and organizations, although now we serve with the Order of the Dragon. We want you to join us there, to see what we have accomplished for the past few centuries." she said, looking hopeful herself that they would join them.

The Gems watched their leader for any kind of indication, anything to clue them in on what she was thinking. Unfortunately, she was unreadable. It wasn't until she spoke that they knew what her decision would be.

"...Garnet?" came the single word from Rose, looking back to her as if asking for some advice. The stoic gem stood there for a moment, and if she hadn't been wearing glasses they would have seen her third eye zooming around, as if looking at things they themselves could not. When it stopped she shook her head "There is no danger to us." she said simply, taking a step forward to join Rose as she took her own steps onto the Warp Pad.

Amethyst simply let out an excited yowl, running over before climbing on top of Garnet's head, where she rested in her unnaturally soft afro. Pearl was apprehensive though, watching them all before she sighed. Well, it was two very young pearls. The worst that could happen was one of them was poofed. She took a few long strides onto the Pad before looking up at Rose one more time. The light of the Warp overwhelmed them, and then they were gone.

* * *

"And that's all we're going to talk about today." Pearl said softly, the hologram disappearing with loud, although somewhat tired sounding, groans coming from Connie and Steven. "Now children, it's getting late." She said, somewhat annoyed by the groans, although she couldn't help but smile at how desperately they tried to stay awake. "Oh all right, I'll at least answer whatever questions you have." she said softly, watching as they both sat up in an attempt to stay awake

Steven was first, looking at Pearl and thinking for a moment before continuing. "Those two were different pearls, Tahi and Sou." he said softly "I didn't know there were more pearls." he said with a yawn "I thought you were the only one?"

Pearl let out a sigh, knowing it would come to this question before nodding "There are more than one pearl, usually we were meant as drones to take orders from superiors." she said honestly, trying her best to maintain her composure from the bad memories of the past. "However, as you'll find out later, those two were different even from me. They were practically raised by humans, and they gained individuality much faster than I did." she said, although obviously with some disdain towards the subject.

So Connie decided to interject, figuring they'd find out more as the story went on "It sounded like they've met a lot of people from early to late Christendom, how come you guys never mention anything about stuff like that?"

"We never really cared enough, Rose was the one that was all into that human biz." Amethyst said, hanging upside down from the loft that Steven slept in "I like some of their stuff, but I didn't really get to be with them until we came here. Even then, it wasn't until later that things really got started."

Garnet nodded in agreement "We met a few influential figures from human history, but we preferred to stay out of their business. It was better humanity learn themselves than try and copy us. At least that's what your mother believed. It's gotten harder with how much you all reproduce, but we still try and maintain that."

"Garnet and Amethyst are right, we were too busy with our mission to really delve into human affairs. We only really interacted whenever there was a gem involved. The natives did worship us for a short time until...well, there's a reason it was so easy for Europeans to colonize the New World, and why we really didn't want them to." she said, some sadness in her voice before she shook her head "We managed to convince the new American Government to give Delmarva autonomy, it's why the money here looks different from say, Empire City, or Longhorn City." she said before chuckling "Governor Dewey was quite useful for that, believe it or not that family does have some brilliant people, although it seems to skip a generation or two." she said, obviously speaking of their current Mayor

"Yeah, but having a crush on Pearl must be genetic because he had it _baaaaad_ for you!" she said with a laugh at the now blushing Pearl "That's beside the point!" she said, her blush growing brighter at the small smirk Garnet was sporting "A-Anyway, we asked for autonomy so that we could deal with gem business on our own, without interference." she said with a sigh before she looked at the time "Now really, you two should be going to bed." she said, happy to see Steven give a tired nod in reply.

As the children got ready for bed she put things away, sighing at the mess Amethyst had created. When the aforementioned gem came and began to actually help her though, she couldn't help the smile that spread across her lips "P, I don't know how you're gonna work your movie magic on this next part." she said softly, grabbing the pillows and throwing them into a pile. Well, it was better than what she usually did. "It's kinda...messy, if you catch my drift." she said, earning a nod from Pearl.

"I know Amethyst, I know." she said with a sigh "I'll do my best to censor it so that he isn't done too much harm. There is a difference between real life death and death on a TV show after all."

* * *

 **A/N: Sorry for the wait. I had school and work I had to contend with. Thanks for your patience, hopefully I can move a bit faster now. I was also trying to lengthen the chapters, as I'm not really a fan of anything less than at least 1,000 words in length. Thanks for reading!  
**


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